2010 Insect Fear Film Festival: Prehistoric Insects

Mark this on your calendar: February 27 is the 27th annual Insect Fear Film Festival. Hosted by the entomology graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the festival showcases two (usually terrible) arthropod movies.  This year’s delectable offerings are The Black Scorpion (1957) and Ice Crawlers (2003).

If bad movies aren’t your thing, the festival also has an insect art competition, live insect displays, face painting, and other buggy entertainment.  As way of a preview, Jo-anne posted her pics of last years event here.  I’ve put the full announcement below:

PREHISTORIC INSECTS

The 27th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival will be held on February 27, 2010. As usual, admission will be free and the doors will open at 6 PM. In addition to the films, there will also be traditional IFFF activities, including face painting, the insect petting zoo, and Bugscope. Check back soon when we reveal this year’s winning T-shirt design, available to buy at the festival.

For this year’s theme, we will delve back millions of years of Earth’s history to take a look at some spectacular and bizarre prehistoric creatures. We will begin the evening with a collection of movie trailers and scenes featuring prehistoric insects. In the first movie of the evening, giant scorpions terrify a small Mexican city in the 1957 classic Black Scorpion, featuring special effects by Willis O’Brien who came to fame by bringing the giant ape to life in King Kong. The highlight of the evening will arguably be Ice Crawlers — the only movie ever to feature killer trilobites, an extinct group of insect-like animals even older than dinosaurs.
We will feature face painting, locally-made insect-related artwork, exotic insect displays from around the world and an insect petting zoo, featuring popular ‘pets’ like cockroaches, moths and grasshoppers! We will also have, for the first time, live horseshow crabs and a display of insect fossils.

2010 Insect Fear Film Festival Schedule of Events
Event	Time
Doors open	6:00 PM
Opening remarks, art contest winners	7:00 PM
Features
Prehistoric Movie Trailer Extravaganza The Best of “Prehistoric Insects on Television” The Black Scorpion (1957) (info) Ice Crawlers (2003) (info)	7:30 PM 7:40 PM 7:50 PM 9:30 PM

IFFF Art Contest:

For many years, we have held an Insect Art Contest in conjunction with the Insect Fear Film Festival. The art contest is organized and presented by graduate students and judged by volunteers from campus and the community, but participation by teachers and students truly makes the art contest a success. In the past, we have solicited entries from art teachers in area schools, but we think that participation in the Insect Art Contest can extend beyond art classes. Any student in the community is welcome to enter! If you are interested in the contest, please click the links below for the contest rules and entry form.